There was a time not so long ago, when organizations could craft a Recruitment Marketing value proposition, update the careers site, and include career content marketing. The expected result would be a rapid uptake in new candidate applications. In 2022 things are not so easy.

Today, seasoned CHROs and CEOs admit that current talent attraction and retention challenges are unprecedented in their careers. Today’s talent are looking for real change – recruitment marketing messages mean extraordinarily little without a stellar corporate reputation to match.

As the employee voice rises, companies are increasingly grappling with crisis management that impacts more than recruitment. Corporate brands, Leadership teams and stock prices are also taking major hits. Lost revenues, employees and customers frequently cost companies in the millions.

There have been countless cases highlighted recently in the news.

Glossier’s employer brand took a hit in August 2020 when more than 50 anonymous retail employees called “Outta The Gloss” accused the billion-dollar beauty brand of mishandling racist incidents in the workplace and fostering a toxic culture that blocked BIPOC employees from succeeding. Employees published the accusations on Medium and Instagram garnering significant media coverage. The result was a huge hit to the reputation as a retail employer, a hit to the overall brand reputation, product sales, and subsequent leadership apologies and changes.

Activision Blizzard’s employer brand continues to take hits. Recently a group of twelve formed an anti-discrimination committee aimed at combating sex and gender discrimination at the company. This followed a settlement in September 2021 of a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit brought forward by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In addition, a group of QA employees from their Raven Software division just recently unionized, setting a precedent for the tech industry. This is a fantastic example of the importance of not just having a beautiful external recruitment marketing brand, but a truly aligned culture and leadership team living the brand promise.

The past week media featured countless commentaries, regarding Tesla and SpaceX’s employer brand as Elon Musk demanded employees return to work a minimum of 40 hours a week. Two days later, he messaged that as much as 10% of the workforce at Tesla be cut. Irrespective of the ask, the style of communication forwarded to employees in these mass emails became fodder for public opinion pieces on the workplace leadership and culture. The result is an almost overnight shift in perceptions of what it is like to work at Telsa and SpaceX and ignited direct recruitment campaigns from several top employers eager to steal such prized talent.

These employer brand and culture crises examples are increasing in frequency. The cost to and impact to C-Suite leadership brands, corporate and product brand value, stock price, revenue and reputation is significant and can be devastating.

Why Is Employer Brand Reputation Management So Important?

We are in a major cultural shift in the world of work. A time where talent are demanding jobs that provide them with greater meaning, purpose, and care. Employees are tired of unfulfilled promises, unavailable leaders, and a lack of values alignment. They are no longer asking but demanding a commitment to their experience and wellbeing.

Trust and Transparency Is Non-Negotiable – Leadership trust and transparency is demanded by employees and job seekers today and is no longer negotiable. The saying that talent leaves managers not companies is ever true. This great resignation we are witnessing – that is due to a massive weakness in leadership and management teams, and a missing accountability to deliver on the employee experience.

If your organization has an employer brand solution but the management team has no idea what the EVP is, and there are no analytics on how employees experience it, all you have is a recruitment marketing campaign. If you wish to elevate the corporate reputation, the employer brand must steer culture change management, develop management and leadership teams, and be integrated into organizational design and communications decisions.

Review Sites Are Now the Most Influential Job Boards – Today’s talent are avid users of social and employer review sites. Job seekers and employees have grown up not only sharing opinions and recommendations on social media, but airing grievances, calling out injustices and holding corporations accountable online.

In the last few years, review sites like Glassdoor and Indeed have also become the biggest job boards and owners of career search rankings.

Furthermore, Blu Ivy regularly uncovers in our research that talent trust employer review sites far more than top employer awards when making application and career change decisions. What people say on these sites matter. For the CEO, for your corporate reputation and for talent attraction.

Culture Change Management Is Essential to Reputation Management

A top employer brand and a steadfast reputation will not be accomplished through storytelling alone. If you are looking to pulse on the value of your employer brand, understand what your current reputation is, not just on job boards but through broad social listening. Learn how much of your brand share of voice is from the corporate vs employer brand commentary.

Pulse to learn what percentage of your people managers, and executive leaders know what the company EVP and promise is. If there is a real gap in awareness and accountability, you risk reputation crisis and unfulfilled commitments to your employees.

We pride ourselves at Blu Ivy in helping our clients not only get award winning employer brand creative but more importantly, to integrate this work into best workplace cultures, change experiences and brand strategy. Workplace culture and EVP can and does significantly influence your company reputation and share of voice. Ensure your partner and strategy works from the inside out.

Blog Author:

Stacy Parker
Managing Director and Co-Founder
Blu Ivy Group.

About Us

Blu Ivy Group is a global leader in employer branding, organizational culture, and recruitment marketing. We help organizations across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors build extraordinary employee experiences, magnetic employer brands and high-performance cultures.

From C-Suite to Employer Brand and Talent Acquisition leadership, we partner with our clients to transform their organizations and design the most compelling workplaces of the future.

For inquiries, please contact sparker@bluivygroup.com.